c. 2000 Religion News Service
Prayer Urged to Stop `Zero-Year Curse’ on Bush
WASHINGTON (RNS) An evangelical prayer organization is asking Christians to pray that President-elect George W. Bush will not succumb to a “curse” it says has killed seven presidents since 1840 before their terms ended.
The so-called “zero-year curse” has shown up every 20 years and killed seven presidents elected in years ending in zero except for Ronald Reagan. When Reagan narrowly survived an attempted assassination in 1981, believers say the curse was broken.
Still, the Leesburg, Va.-based Intercessors for America is asking for prayers that the curse will not resurface and that Bush will survive his four-year term.
“Because Satan would desire to use these new speculations to undermine faith and promote fear and suspicion … it is important that, as intercessors, we reaffirm the cancellation and `breaking’ of death curses on the U.S. presidency,” said Intercessors president Gary Bergel in the group’s January 2001 newsletter.
According to Bergel, Native American legend says that Tenskwatawa, a Shawnee warrior and prophet, put the curse on Gen. William Henry Harrison at the Battle of Tippecanoe. Tenskwatawa predicted that Harrison would one day become the “Great White Chief” but would die in office and every Great White Chief chosen after him every 20 years would also die.
Harrison died just a month after his inauguration in 1841 of pneumonia. Abraham Lincoln, elected 20 years later in 1860, was assassinated in 1865. James Garfield, elected in 1880, and William McKinley, elected in 1900, were both assassinated a year after they were elected.
The “curse” continued with Warren Harding, who died three years after his 1920 election, and Franklin Roosevelt, who was reelected in 1940 and died in 1945. John F. Kennedy died in 1963, and Reagan narrowly escaped death in 1981.
Bergel said there are other astrological and occult predictions that the president elected in 2000 must die. He also asked for prayer that the White House would be “cleansed” of occult practices, such as Nancy Reagan’s use of astrology and Hillary Clinton’s alleged use of a seance to channel the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt.
Sondra Johnson, an executive assistant at Intercessors for America, said the 27-year-old organization is nonpartisan and would have issued the prayer advisory if Al Gore had won the White House. “We’re political in that we tell people what’s going on, but we’re not political in that we say, `Pray for this guy but don’t pray for that guy,”’ Johnson said.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Alaskan Bishop Asks Clinton To Block Oil Drilling
(RNS) The Episcopal bishop of Alaska has asked President Clinton to declare the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge off-limits to oil drilling before he leaves office, a move that could keep President-elect George W. Bush from tapping the area’s estimated billions of barrels of oil.
Bishop Mark MacDonald wrote to Clinton along with a group of 22 remote parishes, most of which are only accessible by airplane or boat. MacDonald said he was reluctant to enter the political fray over the issue but said time is running out.
“Since our business is to proclaim the gospel, we are reluctant to speak out in the so-called political arena,” MacDonald wrote. “Nevertheless, the urgency of the hour and the integrity of the message compel us to act.”
MacDonald’s main concern is the fate of the Gwich’in tribe, a Native American nation that relies on porkupine caribou herds native to the coastal plain of the refuge. MacDonald said both the caribou and the Gwich’in would be threatened by oil exploration.
“Development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a threat to the Porkupine Caribou Herd, is a threat to the Gwich’in,” MacDonald wrote. “Although we have heard much about the environment from both sides of the issue, we wish to underline, with charity and respect for all, that the Gwich’in and their way of life is the greatest risk of development.”
MacDonald cautioned he was not speaking for all Episcopalians nor all Alaskans. Still, MacDonald’s letter angered Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, who linked MacDonald with “extremists” who want to “illegally” block oil exploration in the region.
Bush said he would open up the arctic refuge to oil exploration as part of his energy policy, but environmentalists say the policy would squander the region’s pristine natural beauty and threaten wildlife. If Clinton were to designate the area as a national monument, Congress could still vote to allow oil exploration, and Stevens said there is no need to add the federal designation to the land.
_ Kevin Eckstrom
Jesus `Kidnap’ Plot Linked to Refugee Plight
(RNS) At least eight figures of Jesus have been stolen from Christmas nativity scenes and creche displays by a Belgian group who announced Thursday (Dec. 28) they wanted to draw attention to the plight of refugees in the country.
“Operation Jesus 2000” said they initiated the thefts because they wondered “How would Jesus, fleeing persecution in his country of origin, be received in Belgium in the year 2000?”
“These peaceful `kidnappings’ are the work of a group of citizens … who want to alert public opinion to the reception in Belgium of refugees from around the world,” declared the group on its Web site, Reuters news agency reported. The group said they intended to return the stolen figures by Friday (Dec. 29).
The group’s thefts come a week after the Belgian government announced plans to temporarily tighten border restrictions. The move is an effort to stem an anticipated rise in the number of people seeking asylum in Belgium before the end of cash benefits for refugees.
Belgian officials announced recently they had received some 40,000 applications _ twice the number expected _ from illegal immigrants hoping to take advantage of a special program to gain Belgian residency.
Update: Request Rejected From Slain Nuns’ Kin for Retrial of Accused
(RNS) Relatives of four U.S. churchwomen slain during El Salvador’s 12-year civil war have lost their request for a new civil trial of two former Salvadoran military generals whom they hold partly responsible for the slayings.
The one-sentence rejection of the families’ request was handed down on Friday (Dec. 22) by U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley, Florida’s Sun-Sentinel reported. Hurley did not explain his decision.
Relatives of Roman Catholic nuns Dorothy Kazel, Ita Ford and Maura Clarke, and lay worker Jean Donovan, had argued that jurors in the civil trial of former Salvadoran National Guard leader Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova, 62, and former Salvadoran Defense Minister Jose Guillermo Garcia, 67, were given erroneous instructions before deliberations. The families also argued the jury’s verdict ran contrary to evidence revealed during the trial.
Families of the victims had filed a lawsuit against the two men under a U.S. law that permits legal action against anyone who bears “command responsibility” for the criminal activity of subordinates, according to the Associated Press.
But on Nov. 3, a Florida court found Garcia and Vides Casanova bore no such responsibility for the Dec. 2, 1980, slayings.
However, one of five National Guard soldiers convicted in 1984 of the murders and sentenced to 30 years in prison insists he and his colleagues were simply following orders when they attacked the women.
Though his appeal for a presidential pardon was denied in August, the man’s claim is backed by a 1993 United Nations Truth Commission report that contended one of the guardsmen “obeyed the orders from his superiors to execute” the women. The commission’s report also maintained that senior officials, including Vides Casanova, “knew that National Guard members had committed the assassinations under orders from their superiors.”
Both Vides Casanova and Garcia retired to Florida in 1989 and, because they had no criminal convictions, were allowed to become U.S. residents.
The families, who believe their relatives were attacked because authorities thought they sympathized with forces opposed to the government, have not announced whether they plan to appeal the Nov. 3 decision.
Quote of the Day: Snowmobiler June Bloom
(RNS) “We gave some guy his life and we didn’t even set out to do anything remarkable that day. I’m not real religious, but somebody was directing all of us up there.”
_ June Bloom, one of the snowmobilers who found Thomas Wade Truett on Dec. 23 after he had being trapped in his car under 5 feet of snow for 16 days. Bloom was quoted by the Associated Press on Dec. 28.
DEA END RNS
